Abstract
Hospitality training facilities are the “laboratories” in which hospitality students are exposed to
experiential learning in real business environments. These establishments serve a dual purpose,
to produce employable hospitality graduates and to generate adequate revenue through
commercial trade to ensure their financial sustainability. Despite the importance of service
value perception by guests in hospitality training facilities, this has not been effectively
measured by existing studies in this field. To meet and exceed these expectations, hospitality
training facilities need to know and understand what their guests expect from them so that they
can deliver services to satisfy their guests. The study sought to develop a profile of guests
patronising commercial food and beverage training facilities and determine their satisfaction
levels with these establishments. The methodology implemented was quantitative, surveying
300 guests at various commercial establishments at two hospitality training facilities in South
Africa. The findings of the study revealed that hospitality training facilities are most frequently
patronized by a youthful market who are educated, either work or study at the facility and who
visit these facilities for meetings or business events. Significantly, the study found that the
majority of guests at these facilities did not experience high levels of satisfaction, revealing
gaps in the products and services delivered to them. In terms of ensuring guest satisfaction, the
most important underlying factors that influenced this, as identified by guests were
responsiveness, reliability, tangibility, empathy and assurance. The low levels of satisfaction
that are revealed by the study should be addressed through improvements in service delivery
and product quality. Along with this, managers at commercial food and beverage training
facilities must develop innovative marketing strategies to attract guests to their facilities and
sufficiently train student employees in high service quality. The results of the study provide
valuable insights in ensuring the future success of hospitality training facilities in South Africa
and the recommendations made can assist the managers of these facilities to deliver higher
service standards, ensuring financial sustainability and the effective training of future
hospitality employees.
Keywords: Hospitality training, guest satisfaction, commercial training facilities.